Parda Margarida Maria de Jesus: liberdade e família em perspectiva interseccional - Lages/SC

Abstract

The research initiates from the innumerable possibilities of using the concept of intersectionality to consider the trajectories of Liberated Black Women in the southern region of Brazil, in dialogue with post-abolition research. Employing ecclesiastical, notarial, and judicial records produced in the cities of Lages-SC and Vacaria-RS, we seek to investigate the sociability networks and the movement of the liberated black Margarida Maria de Jesus. This research questions which maneuvers made it possible for Margarida to leave her enslaved condition for freedom, questioning her strategies and support networks. Margarida earned her freedom through an Action for Freedom in 1884 in Lages/SC, at the age of 20, with two children through relationships formed by her in this location, and moved to Vacaria/RS as Emílio Virginio dos Santos’ wife, a white man with economic power and political representation in the region. By presenting her family and the struggle around the conquest of freedom and its maintenance, exemplified by the discussions of individuals present in this clash, we sought to provide her particular experience of life marked by the intersections between gender, race, and class. The intersectional perspective also focuses on the agency of these women, taken as protagonists of their stories, and in this study, we showcase that their protagonism is associated with the extended family constituted by them.